When you are a fraud

There are two reason you may consider yourself a fraud of some sort in the honest moments of solitude:

Your employers or customers keep telling you that you are not good for a justified reason (see below).

You honestly don’t think yourself as competent enough for all the success you have so far.

Ok, employers or customers may have a selfish reason to discount your capabilities; to make you work on lower salary or provide services on lower price.

But if you are underestimating yourself then you may be a victim of Impostor Syndrome which says:

Impostor syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. Notably, impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women.